Please join the Balsillie School of International Affairs and CIGI for a lunchtime conversation about Craig VanGrasstek's new book On Trade War. Professor VanGrasstek will provide a brief overview of the book followed by a discussion with Odun Olowookere (CIGI) and a Q&A session.
The event will be held in-person, and a light lunch will be served for people who register. The event is open to the BSIA community, including all UW and Laurier faculty and students, and CIGI colleagues.
About On Trade War
Trade wars carry the fierce urgency of now, yet to understand the present predicament we must look beyond one country and the peculiarities of its leader. On Trade War takes an historical and interdisciplinary approach to explain how the world came to this juncture. It distinguishes among great powers by archetype: commercial great powers such as Athens and England differ from political great powers such as Rome or the United States, and even more so from disengaged great powers such as Sparta and the Soviet Union. The outbreak of the present trade war can be traced to China's decision half a century ago to switch archetypes from the disengaged to the commercial great power; the conduct of that trade war is shaped by a later Chinese decision to switch from a commercial to a political great power.
About the Speaker:
Craig VanGrasstek has taught trade policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the American University’s School of International Service, as well as literature at Georgetown University. He wrote the World Trade Organization’s official history and Trade and American Leadership. He ‘keeps a sharp eye on the politics of trade,’ according to The Economist, and has advised international organizations and national governments in more than four dozen countries on five continents.
